The 13-inch MacBook Pro has been a mainstay of laptop computing for years now. What’s phenomenal is the sheer consistency of the product – delivering top end aesthetics and performance year, after year, after year. This time Apple have slimmed everything down without compromising on performance or display.

The new MacBook Pro is only just thicker than the MacBook Air, and with a retina screen (so that you can’t see any pixels) to boot this thing is seriously impressive. The battery is purported to last for nine hours, and apparently costs around R13,000 (in America), which is R800 more than the same sized Macbook Air, and a full R4,000 less than the last model.

The trackpad is as intuitive and interactive as ever, and the punchy-black keys remain just as enjoyable. The audio, though, appears to come through the keyboard, and sounds a bit tinny.

On the port side of things, the setup will be familiar. Two Thunderbolt 2 ports, two USB 3.0 jacks, a headphone jack and an SD card slot – which is all you need really. Especially considering how skinny this thing is. It measures 0,71 inches rather than last year’s 0,75,and weighs 1,56 kilograms instead of 1,6.

To make up for the slight extra weight over the Air, the 13-inch Pro offers a 13,3-inch, 2560 x 1600 Retina display. But Apple faces some competition in the screen department, with the Toshiba Kirabook, the Acer Aspire S7, the Samsung Ativ Book 9 Plus, and some other notebooks offer equally great screens.

The verdict? It’s a little better than the last MacBook, it’s a little skinnier than the last Macbook, and it’s screen is a little bit better too.

What did you expect?

[Source : The Verge]